What a great way to start a new year.  SimplyJacy.com has earned a Google Page Rank of 2!  This means that I have improved my ranking on Google’s Search Engine.  So what is Page Rank?

Google describs PageRank:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been running on WordPress 2.7 Beta since they had it developed.  Finally, WordPress 2.7 Platform has been released and I  just had it installed in my site.  I would never trade WP for anything.  It just makes everything easy to manage, organize and not to mention, themes and features do look very professional.

If you are using WordPress as your platform, what you’ll notice on this latest version is its new interface.  The look, feel and everything you do on your site is just fast and only takes fewer clicks than the previous versions.  The new Dashboard can be arranged according to your own preference by simply clicking and dragging it.    You can even customize your screen by using the Screen Options.

What I like about this is the built-in goodies.  You no longer need the Threaded Comment plugin for your site as it is already part of Wordpres 2.7.  And best of all, installing WordPress 2.7 will be your last manual upgrade since this version has a built in Automatic Upgrade for Platform Versions and Plugins.

WordPress has just got better and better.  And I’m loving it!

There will be a short 30 minute down time on my site starting at 11pm EST for a system upgrade. I hope you will bear with me and visit me in a little while.

Blogging and having online small business has become popular nowadays.  Many of you may have started off having your blog under a free web hosting service.  Nothing is really free and that applies online.  For any free hosting provider like Blogger for example, there are always trade-offs for receiving free web hosting.  One of that for example is you are giving up your web presence by giving up your domain name.  If you have your own domain name but continues to host it on free web hosting provider, you have given up to their trade-offs.  These includes limited web space, advertisements on your web page that can draw away your visitors, limited features, and limited programming capabilities.  And another thing, you will have to conform to the free host’s programming requirements, which may be limited to only one style of programming. Your features and capabilities for web design will likely be very limited.

Having mentioned the disadvantages of having a free web hosting service, I am very pleased having my own domain hosted on a paid web hosting service.  I not only have the freedom to secure as much space as I want but I can develop content pages in the design that suits my needs and my style. It also gives me full control of the content of my site.  And I can get a professional, domain-branded email address if I want to.

Now if you are starting to consider web hosting, you will need to know which paid hosting service provides cheap, practical and reliable service.  For starters, you will need web host rating for you to see which web hosting provider is the best among the others.  I’d refer you to www.webhostingrating.com to compare host services against each other and see how they are rated based on the customer satisfaction, affordability, reliability, uptime and techical support. You can also find out which of them has received awards of recognition based on performance, price and other categories. Not only that, their website is filled with articles to give you knowledge to help you maximize the potential of your website.  If your in for the money online, the article Internet Advertising – Making Money With Your Website will fill you with knowledge and give you points on how to earn online.

So if you mean serious business, when you want to affirm yourself as a professional in your field, go buy a hosting plan that has a domain included in the price and make a serious start.

After a long day of plugins search, email and instant message exchange with Plugin Authors and Theme Developers, I have finally resolved the issue.  The case regarding instant replies is now closed.  Little did I know that the Instant Reply feature is already built in to InfoCreek themes.  They may have mentioned it in the ReadMe.txt but I didn’t bother reading it.

I finally had my eureka moment when I decided to deactivate the AJAX plugins that I have downloaded.  Then I tried to submit a comment and voila!!! My comment was published instantly.

If your blogs doesn’t have this Instant Reply feature (I’m addressing this to wordpress users), I’m recommending you to download and install either of the plugins below:

• AJAX Comment Posting by Regua
• AJAX Comments by Mike Smullin

So, there shouldn’t be any more concerns regarding replies and comments.  If there’s anything else that you noticed, do let me know, will ya?

NEW!!! I have also added another feature in my blog – the Member’s section.  Those who are registered members of my blog (not just the subscribed ones) will have their own Profile that shows their website, biographical info (if you filled it up), a list of their comments and your Uploaded Photo.  This way, I can help promote your site to the other readers of my blog while keeping track of the comments that you have posted.   For those who have not registered yet, it is never to late to jump in and be included in the directory.  All you have to do is to click REGISTER at the Meta Widget located at the right side.  Fill in the information needed and when you’re done, you will be able to see your Profile at the Member’s Directory page.

Enjoy browsing through my blog and keep coming back!

As you may have noticed and read in my previous post, I have updated my blog and switched to a new theme.  Unfortunately, along with this transition, my AJAX Comments plugin doesn’t seem to work.  This plugin posts comments quickly or instantly without leaving or refreshing the page.  It used  to work with my previous themes but on themes from Infocreek, it doesn’t seem to work.

Unlike before, you will not instantly see the comment or reply that you have made on my post.   Don’t be alarmed.  It is already a known glitch.  You will need to refresh your browser to be able to see your posted comment.  I am currently looking for ways to remedy it.  Currently, I am looking for a similar plugin that will work with this theme.  And I have also contacted the developers of the current theme that I’m using.  So, please bear with me.

I have been making updates on my blog.  Not only have I created new posts but I have also switched to a new theme.  The new look is for the sake of novelty.  I just thought that regular visitors of my site might want to view different colors for a change.  This Notepad theme is designed by professionals from Infocreek which provides web development service and accepts customize web designs.

Aside from the new theme, I have also added a new plugin to my website.  Subscribe2 provides a comprehensive subscription management and email notification system for WordPress blogs that sends email notifications to a list of subscribers when a new content is published to the blog.  E-mail notifications will be sent per-post basis or periodically in a Digest email.

Those who have already subscribed to my blog…

Those who have not subscribed and wish to be updated and be informed if there’s a new post made in my blog, you have two ways to do it.

• You can Register by clicking it at the Meta Widget.
• You can simply type your email address at the Subscribe to my Blog section.

With this new update, you don’t have to come to my site every day to check if a new post has been made.  I will send you an email as soon as a new post has been published.   This way, you won’t miss a thing.

I have also enabled the Avatar option so that User photos may be displayed within a post or a comment to help identify the author.  If you are a REGISTERED USER on my blog, you will have the option to upload your image on your profile section.  This photo will be scaled to fit the dimensions for the Profile page and a thumbnail automatically generated for comments.